Investigation into Alleged Mistreatment in Immigrant Detention Centers

Photo: Mother Jones Magazine



A group from the Organization of American States is planning to investigate reports of abuse in U.S. detention centers. When a U.N. inspector tried to visit a Texas detention center earlier this year, he was refused entrance. Perhaps the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will have better luck.

If the IACHR can't get in either, then we know we really have a serious problem on our hands.

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IMMIGRATION
Detention centers under fire
A human rights group alleged that immigrants in U.S. detention centers are denied contact with families and receive inadequate healthcare.
Posted on Sat, Oct. 13, 2007
Miami Herald
BY LESLEY CLARK
lclark@MiamiHerald.com

WASHINGTON --
An international human rights watchdog group said Friday that it plans to investigate allegations of mistreatment among immigrants held in the nation's detention centers.
The interest from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, or IACHR, a branch of the Organization of American States, comes just a week after a House subcommittee held its first hearing to look at complaints about healthcare in the detention centers, including one in Miami.

The enhanced scrutiny of the facilities that hold both undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants who are being held for deportation and other proceedings comes as the number of detainees increases, along with a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Representatives of immigrant advocacy groups who appeared before the commission to ask it to look into conditions at the centers said they were encouraged by the move.

''We really need the attention of the international community and the public to force the Congress and the administration to require that detainees are treated humanely,'' said Kerri Sherlock Talbot, director of policy at the Rights Working Group, a coalition of human rights, civil liberties and immigrant-rights organizations in the United States.

The immigration advocates depicted detention centers as modified prisons where even children are forced to wear prison uniforms, are denied contact with family and where pleas for medical attention are ignored. They noted that 66 people in U.S. custody have died since 2004...



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